The Epic "Break," Holidays and a New Year

Happy New Year!

The only thing you can do when you are horribly behind is just jump right in, right?

Right.

Winter break was wonderful. See also: Exhausting, dizzying, frustrating and hilarious. Everything that life at our house is, times infinity, full-time.

I look forward to the "break" all year long, even if it hardly lives up to its name.



The excitement on Christmas Eve? Oh. My. Goodness. I felt like I spent the last half of my day/whole evening scraping children off the ceiling. The anticipation was palpable. But eventually they all did fall asleep which meant…Erin and I got to put together toys and wrap seventy-nine presents! Weeeeee!

Photo below snapped at approximately 10:48 p.m. Christmas Eve. By the way, thanks Sweetie, for making me wrap presents a few nights in advance, rather than saving it ALL for Christmas Eve. That was a very, very good call (we wrapped 79 presents, rather than 219). Did I mention I've become a terrible procrastinator in my old age?


Note the tidiness and organization. Short-lived, trust.

Is there anything like that moment where you've finished wrapping everything and you're sitting there in your pjs, watching the final minutes of "It's a Wonderful Life" in front of the twinkling Christmas tree, thinking to yourself, yup, it really is just that. Wonderful.  Note: I'm usually drinking a glass of Bailey's at that moment, but I wasn't this year--it says a lot that I didn't even dip into it this year (sweet Erin even bought me the "big" bottle). Too. Tired. To. Drink. The hard stuff. I know.


Aaaand the next morning. It must have taken them about three minutes to open all 219 packages.


Absolute chaos. Like always.


New art supplies from Santa = momentary calm x 4. Did I mention no one asked to turn on the TV until about 3 p.m. on Christmas Day? I think we set a record.


These new stuffed animals were a favorite gift.




No Christmas breakfast would be complete without bouche de Noel (or, as we dubbed it this year, "Christmas Cake.") And yes, the twins instantaneously both learned to say "More Christmas Cake." Clear as little bells.

And if all that Christmas excitement wasn't enough, the Oregon grandparents came to visit, two days after the sugar/new toy high had begun to wear off.

We filled our days with watercolors, neighborhood walks, trips to the playgrounds (weather permitting), more new toys and books.








They also brought a little piece of Oregon with them, both in spirit and in the form of Ducky slippers from my sister and brother-in-law.


Artist Ellie paints a portrait of Artist Grandpa.


Harry and Grandma.


Playing ball in his room with Grandpa = Leo's Most Favorite Thing Ever.



Our now (so I've proclaimed-we've gone two years in a row so it's official!) annual New Year's Eve trip to our little local zoo was memorable as always. I love it for many reasons, one of which being that it's always freezing and we're always one of approximately two families there. It's like having our own private zoo and the twins can run crazy free to their hearts' content.


Looking for penguins. Right after I took this picture it started snowing, graceful, tiny flakes. Not going to lie. It was magical. 


Twins being penguins. Because, of course!




The walk home from the zoo. It was as cold as it looks!

The big kids were overjoyed to be able to take Grandma and Grandpa to the movies on a rainy Sunday morning, sharing their passion for "Frozen" (and I was not so secretly pretty excited about seeing it a second time, myself). We concluded our day in suburbia (a novelty for G&G but nothing but the "usual" for us), with a late lunch at Leo's beloved Five Guys, where Leo and Ellie taught Grandpa about the intricacies of the fairly amazing Five Guys soda machine.


It ended up being the "break" that kept on giving. The kids went back to school last Thursday, only to get a snow day on Friday.


Four (almost) snow angels. Or, someone's always gotta go rogue.

Some like the snow…




…a bit more than others (PS. I know, I know, he needs better boots and gloves. That will help. Lucy inherited all of Ellie's old snow gear and Harry pretty much got the shaft. Placing an order today, Hair-Man. Promise!).


After purging the house of ALL chocolate and bakery items and vowing to eat nothing but brown rice and steamed tofu for the rest of the year, I MAY have run out of things to do to keep the children busy and agreed to help Ellie make cupcakes for her teddy bear's birthday (See: The loooongest winter break ever).



And now, the holidays are over. It's a new year. I won't lie. The next few months have to be my least favorite. It's cold (5-degrees this morning, to be exact).  The tree is horizontal and naked on our curb looking forlorn and dejected. All that build-up and excitement and it's all just over. I mean, of course the holidays can't go on and on (then they wouldn't be special! I find myself trying to explain to the kids). But I'm secretly grateful that many of my neighbors seem to be holding on to the spirit a bit (see above). I always think of my mom though, when I see people with Christmas lights up, far into January and February. She used to grumble about giving people "tickets" for keeping their lights going past the season.

But the best thing about the holidays (if it's possible to pick a "best," which of course, it isn't, but I will anyway) is that they come every year. And every year you get the chance to have the Best Christmas/Holiday Season Ever. This year, the holidays were pretty darn fabulous, full of all the wonder and joy I could have hoped for (yes, in spite of Lucy's wails mid-menorah lighting). Nobody cried at Santa this year (a first!) and I even got to lay on the couch for a few minutes on Christmas Day.

It's a wonderful life. Yup, it really is.